Gravestone Confessional
by Sarah Elric
Summary: ONESHOT Should love feel this way? Better yet, should you feel a great sense of love in a cemetery? You bear your soul to a grave, you should expect no answer...right? Ichigo talks, someone listens, confessions are made, but no kissin! I don't think...


**'ello 'ello loves! Well, I was thinking to meself, Sarah, you should write ANOTHER Ichihime...and NOT write the sequal to ANY other existing stories I have. Why you ask? Because I'm evil? No...because I'm lazy, and I have a cold, and I have no ideas...so I thought I'd get this story out of my stopped up head...GAH! I WANT NYQIL!!! Anyway...I know it's not that good...but give me a break I'm writing this with a COLD! You know the drill...I don't own Bleach, review my fic...blah blah blah...SLEEPY TIME!**

_Kurosaki-kun..._

"Orihime!"

_It's ok..._

"Please Orihime! Don't-!"

_I just wanted to protect you..._

"I promised! I promised I would protect you this time!"

_I just wanted to help..._

"I said I would stop Aizen!"

_I hope..._

"Please!"

_That you..._

"Orihime!"

_Are happy..._

"I won't break my promise! I'm going to protect you!"

_Goodbye...Kurosaki-kun..._

Years later Ichigo is walking down the street towards the cemetery and passes his friends Tatsuki, Chad, and Uryu as they are leaving. They stop and watch their friend head up past them, not looking back once. Tatsuki shakes her head sadly.

"He was the strongest person I knew..."

Chad nods in agreement.

"It's a shame that he lost it all...that he has to carry the burden on his own..."

Uryu watches the sullen, bright haired man turn off to another section of the cemetery.

"He won't let us help him. His pride demands that he take the blame...even though he knows that she wouldn't have had it that way..."

The three leave, hoping that their friend will go back to his old self, and that he will no longer blame himself for what happened.

Ichigo stops in front of the gravestone, a bouquet of flowers is sitting in the stone vase from Tatsuki, Chad, and Uryu's visit. He takes a seat beside the grave. He turns his face to watch the sun begin to set. The breeze blows and he swears he can hear someone laughing.

He sighs and looks over at the grave, reaches for his lighter, and lights a candle. He watches the tiny flame burn, it's light illuminating the characters behind it and makes the face in the picture glow.

"I can't believe you..."

Ichigo refuses to turn around at the woman's voice.

"And you wanted to protect people...Do you think this helps?"

His eyes well up.

"Please...please stop..."

Ichigo turns to face her, tears running down the sides of his face, the streams a testimony to his pain. "I can't...I'm so sorry..."

"Stop apologizing...and stop dwelling in the past, it wasn't your fault..."

"I can't..."

She hops down from her seat on the tombstone to sit next to him. She reaches a delicate hand out to brush away the tears and then sighs. Her hand drops back to her lap, and Ichigo reaches out his own hand to hold hers. She lifts her face to the sky and smiles a rueful smile.

"To think...I used to wish for this kind of emotion from you..." She shakes her head and looks over at the broken man. "You used to be strong..."

"You used to be alive..."

"Is that your excuse? I died, so that means you have to be miserable?"

"You deserved more...You deserved to live happily..."

"You deserved the same..."

"It was my fault...I deserve nothing..."

"Bad people deserve nothing...You aren't a bad person..."

"Why don't you hate me?"

She pauses a moment. "Why don't you hate someone who is close to you after they do something that hurts you?" She smiles. "Because...no matter what...you love them..."

"I just wish..."

"Don't wish...it never gets you anywhere...just live in the moment..."

"I don't want to live...not without you..."

Tears run down her face, her hand grips his tighter, her eyes stare him down. "Don't say that!"

"It's true! I would gladly die if I could be with you!"

"Shut up! Don't say those things! Stop!"

"Admit it! You want to be with me too! You think this whole thing is crap!"

"Yes! Yes I want to be with you! Yes I think this situation is unfair! But...but life's unfair...you got to...let go..."

He sits there in silence the only thing he feels is her hand, her calm warm presence. "...I love you..."

"Ichi..."

"I love you so much...and...and I'm in so much pain because of it! It hurts to be away from you! It hurts to think about you...to be so close to you!" He raises his hand to the side of her face. "Yet...so far away..."

"I-I!" She stammers trying to find the right words. "I love you too!"

"Good," Ichigo says as he rises to his feet and walks away, "Then I can be happy...for a moment."

She sadly she watches him walk away. "See you next year?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world!" Ichigo shouts over his shoulder as he waves. He walks down the stairs, a little more spring in his step, his eyes wonder to the top of the stairs, seeing her smile softly down at him. He waves happily as he backs away into the street, his eyes only on her.

It really was the driver's fault. The street sign warned for pedestrian crossing. She should have been driving slower, she should have been paying attention to the road. It should have been...but it wasn't. At 60 miles per hour, a white Nissan plowed into Ichigo and threw him 30 feet. He then laid on the side of the street for 4 hours before some good Samaritan came upon him and called the authorities. 6 hours later in the room of a nearby hospital, Ichigo died, but he was smiling. His friends and family gathered around his grave, each morning the loss of yet another loved one and slowly left his side.

Ichigo's standing over his grave, scowling. "They _had_ to pick that picture..." He's actually smiling. It's just after he won a country wide sword competion, he leans casually against the wall, arms crossed, sword in hand, his chest bare, and sweating. Orihime had insisted on taking a picture of the champion saying that she wanted an autograph from him as soon as she had the pictures developed. She never had gotten around to it. She always forgot to develop pictures, and in the end Tatsuki went through her apartment and took all the film to get developed, among the photos was this one.

He takes a seat beside the grave. He turns his face to watch the sun begin to set. The breeze blows and he swears he can hear someone laughing.

He sighs and looks over at the grave, and there she sits again like she did before. She hopes down from her seat on the tombstone to sit next to him. She reaches a delicate hand out to stroke his face and then sighs. Her hand drops back to her lap, and Ichigo reaches out his own hand to hold hers. She lifts her face to the sky and smiles a rueful smile.

"I can't believe you're..."

"I know..."

"I hate that you died...you were so strong...I thought you would live forever..."

"I could...but when I thought about you...I knew that I wanted to be with you more..."

"Thanks...you died because of me..."

"No...I died _for_ you...I want to be with you...and...I think you'll agree, you wanted to be with me too..."

"Yeah..."

"So...what do we do now?"

"I don't know...I've been waiting around here so I could be with everyone but...I guess I don't have to do that now..."

"I guess we could go back to Soul Society..."

"Do you think they'd mind?"

"No...something tells me that they've been waiting for us for awhile now..." Ichigo stands and pulls out his sword, summoning the gates to Soul Society. "You ready to go?"

"I guess..." She whispers uncertainly. "You sure you want to be with me?"

"Why not?" He says with a grin as he takes her hand and kisses her temple. "You're pretty adorable to look at...not to mention madly entertaining..."

"You aren't too bad yourself!" She laughs as she and Ichigo begin to walk through the portal.

"You know what?"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too!" Suddenly she seems a lot brighter, like she used to be, and Ichigo felt little bit brighter too.

**(Sarah wakes up from cold medicine indused sleep) Wha...? What happened? Oh hey, so what do you think? I wanted to leave it "open" to whom ever you perfer in a Ichigo pairing...(cough Ichihime cough)THAT WAS THE COLD I SWEAR! Anyway, I feel tired so just review...bye...**


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